“Apple steered its focus at this week’s Worldwide Developers Conference on the newly minted operating systems it is planning to bring out in the fall, OS X Yosemite for the Mac and iOS 8 for iPads and iPhones,” Edward C. Baig reports for USA Today. “But the three vehicles parked on the second floor of the Moscone Center here—a stunning Ferrari, Chevy Spark, and a jazzed up 1965 Ford Mustang—served as very visible reminders that Apple also has designs on the highway.”

“The cars included demonstration units of CarPlay, the communications, entertainment and navigational in-car system Apple plans to make available to on select 2014 vehicles starting this summer, with after-market head-unit options from Pioneer and Alpine also in the works,” Baig reports. “With your iPhone docked via USB to the CarPlay system, you’ll see an in-dash display with iOS-style apps for your Phone, Maps (Apple’s not Google’s of course), Music, Messages and more, including such third-party solutions as MLB Radio.”

“The icons and the way they’re presented are like a larger representation of the phone display. The actual in-vehicle displays and how you control them will vary by car—touch-screen, buttons, knobs or some combination,” Baig reports.You can also summon Siri to dial by voice, or to send, read, or reply to messages.”

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44 Comments

I went to a Mercedes and Lexus dealer last week, shopping for a car. When I asked about Carplay, I was met with either blank stares, or, ‘Let me check on that’. So far, I’ve heard that it will appear on some MB 2015 models. Nothing else. Can’t anyone gin up some excitement about CarPlay? Some auto-makers’ car systems are pathetic and need some serious updating.

I actually owned a Mustang in the 60’s. A 1967 Mustang 2+2, red interior, 289, 3 speed. You didn’t have to be rich to own one…I can remember my monthly payments of $86/month on a three year note. My dad had to co-sign for it, but I had to pay for it which I did.

If you’re going to do comparisons, hannajs, Mustangs are better compared with Camaros, not Corvairs. The main competition for the Corvair was Ford’s Falcon. Another stunning marker of automotive legend. *cough*

Actually, the first Corvairs were pretty good cars, especially the Corsa. After GM’s bean counters got done with it, however, it had been pretty much eviscerated. Stripping out useful bits of the rear suspension was a particularly nifty touch. There has been some speculation that GM’s accounting division was actually working for Ford back then.

Car dealers in the past were way behind the times and these days they better get with it not take years to implement basic new technology.

In 2001 I wanted to hook an iPod up to a new car but what I got was a 6CD/Cassette player. Cassettes were pretty much done by 2001 so WTF? Not even a simple Aux. input was available.

In 2003 I bought an Infiniti G35 for the wife and got… a 6 CD/cassette Bose system player and STILL no way to easily input an iPod except for one of the those cassette adapters allowing you to mini-plug in an audio source. Lame.

Now I’m buying a new car and they better have what I want in the tech dept. and I don’t mean Microsoft’s sunk Sync.

American car dealerships (stealerships) are for the most part the most useless and ineffective source of customer service this side of Comcast. If my hospital were as bad at it’s job as most dealerships are taking care of customers and prospective customers, nobody would go home alive.

Clueless liars that do not know the product, always try to manipulate they buyer, lie like a sheet, fail to listen to consumer preference and fail to keep their word.

Own stock in Tesla, not ready to buy one just yet. The other car stock I have is VW. Tesla is miles ahead in electrics and VW has clean diesel technology well ahead of everyone else and is coming up fast in hybrid and electrics.

obviously these apps not only need an internet connection, but a real good one. where does that comes from? will you have to pay a monthly fee just to use carplay? I’m not sold on it. I’d be just as happy installing an iPad mini there

I can se why you are “not sold on it”. You don’t understand how it works. It is just like using your iPhone, only you control your iPhone through the car’s touchscreen. Apple and third party apps have to write the Carplay interface into their apps. No additional fees, no worries about updating nav maps, etc.

Do you need a monthly subscription to connect your iPhone/iPad to your Mac?
Thought not. The only connection you might need to pay for is the data for Maps, and you don’t always need that if you use mapping apps with native maps, like CoPilot Live.
Music is stored on your device, you don’t need to stream it.

I just watched another video on this. i guess this only works for you if you currently have an iPhone and you connect it to the car. right? So if i don’t have an iPhone on me and i jump in a car with carplay, it will be worthless to me?

Seems to me CarPlay would be compatible with any level of iPhone service you happen to have. At a minimum, it should be access your iOS device as a hard drive for music, maps (as long as they were pre-loaded; the GPS chip works independently of carrier service), contacts. If you have phone service, it would let you make phone calls and send/receive text messages. If you also have cellular data service (and are not in a dead zone), then full web service would be available for things like siri, yelp, inter-active mapping, etc.